Hey, everyone! This week's topic has come to me through popular demand.
It's Bipolar Disorder. What is it and what do we do if we have it?
So stay tuned!
So like I said, this week's topic is Bipolar Disorder. I've heard from many of you that you've either gotten the diagnosis of this from your physician or your therapist
or you know someone who has and you have a lot of questions about it.
The first thing that I want to do is I want to explain the differences between Bipolar I Disorder, Bipolar II Disorder, Dysthymia, Cyclothymia.
I know it sounds like I'm speaking another language, but I promise I'm not.
But I think the best way to describe this is kind of like a teacher would do it, so I'm going to take it to my whiteboard and kind of let you see
the differences between each and how you can meet criteria for one and not another, and how we as clinicians differentiate those.
I think this will really make it clear and then we'll talk a little bit about treatment options once we know. Okay?
I think the easiest way for us to notice the differences with Bipolar Disorder is if I kind of draw it out.
And this was easiest way for me to learn it when I was in school, so just bear with me and I hope this helps.
And as always, leave comments below. Let me know if you kind of like this style. Give it a "thumbs up" and we'll just take it from there.
So the line I'm going to draw right now is kind of like a "normal".
And they always say this is like a baseline, kind of like if on an average day I feel pretty "normal", I'm hanging in here. Right?
Then up here we're going to draw Mania. As many of you who've just watched my "Draw My Life" video, you know I'm not an artist, so bear with me.
So Mania, which many of us have heard about, is kind of an elevated state.
We will feel very good about ourselves. We'll feel often, and this is just sidebar, often we won't want to see anybody when we feel like this.
'Cause we'll feel so freaking good about ourselves, we don't need to sleep. We're getting stuff done.
"I'm so amazing!" We'll have like all these good feelings, right?
And we also talk really fast and we really drive the people in our lives crazy because that's really hard to live with if you can imagine being a person down here
being around a person like this. It's like... It's just too much. Right? Does that make sense?
And I don't mean that in a mean way because when we feel like this we love it.
But, so that's kind of Mania. I know many of you have probably heard that term.
Now down here we're going to draw, it's a Depressive Episode or Major Depressive Episode.
It's just really hard to write this way. Okay. "Major Depressive Episode".
So I know that I talked, I want to say it was like 3 weeks ago, about Depression. I have a video about Depression, so you might want to check that out.
But I will also come back to that talking about Major Depressive Disorder in a way like this at a later video, so stay tuned.
So make sure you subscribe to my channel, so you'll know. Okay. So down here...
We've all had those Major Depressive Episodes. It's my belief that everybody's had a Depressive Episode in their life.
And that's when we feel really low. We don't enjoy things. We may be really tired.
We may have trouble sleeping. We may be really hungry. We may not be hungry at all.
It kind of depends on how it presents for you, but the main thing is kind of just feeling really down, no enjoyment and we're very sad. Okay?
So these are kind of our, not extremes, but these are like the top and the bottom of Bipolar Disorder. Okay?
I'm going to change colors. So when we talk about Bipolar I, okay?
So we start out here and we're like: "Doo, dee, doo, doo, doo..." Right? We kind of go in between.
It doesn't matter we hit a Depressive Episode. All that matters is that we touch here (Mania) and we have at least 1 Manic Episode. Okay?
So we at least experience Mania once. That is Bipolar I. So this (Red) is Bipolar I Disorder.
I know that "O" looks like a blob, but you know what I'm talking about. Okay.
So all that matters is that we hit Mania at least once.
Now, Bipolar II Disorder, we're going to go green for this one. It's like Christmas on here. Okay.
So we start out: "Doo, doo, doo//..."
So Bipolar II, the difference between Bipolar I is we don't hit Mania because if we hit Mania we would be Bipolar I.
But we have to have at least 1 Major Depressive Episode, just 1. So this is Bipolar II.
Now, I know for many of you when you hear you're diagnosed they don't really explain to you the difference.
So that's kind of how they differentiate. It's all about the Mania.
If you've had Mania, you're Bipolar I. If you haven't, here is kind of a Hypomania, they call it where you feel a little bit happy and excited, but not quite as good as a Mania experience. Okay?
So that's the difference. We have those 2. Now I'm going to throw you a curve ball. I'm going to give you this one.
So this is blue. I know it's kind of getting a little crazy, but I'll start it in here.
Okay. Now, you would say, you'd think: "Well, then they don't have Bipolar Disorder because they don't meet Mania and they don't have a Depressive Episode".
And you are right. This is not Bipolar Disorder.
They call this Cyclothymia. Now, I'm probably going to spell this wrong, but if I remembered it correctly...
So Cyclothymia is when we cycle between Hypomania and kind of like Dysthymia.
And now Dysthymia, which I'll just write up here 'cause I'm not going to... It's a low-grade Depression.
So it'd kind of be like if we just kind of hung in here.
That would be kind of what Dysthymia is.
Are we following? So just to give you a little debrief of all the chaos.
If we hit Mania, we're Bipolar I. If we don't hit Mania and we have a Depressive Episode, we're Bipolar II.
If we kind of cycle in between it's called Cyclothymia. And then if we only have a low-grade depression that kind of goes on for like years of our lives, they call that Dysthymia.
I know that people throw around those terms a lot and it can be really frustrating as a person getting the diagnosis.
'Cause we're like: "Well, what the heck does that mean?" And we don't always get a lot of time with our psychiatrists or our psychologists.
We may have to wait months to see them. I know in other countries, many of you tell me you don't get to see people very often and it can be really confusing.
So that kind of gives you a rough idea of what we're looking at and how we differentiate between the different types of diagnoses or if we're just depressed, if we have Major Depression.
It kind of gives you... I think that's why I like this; because it gives you a scale.
Okay. So we have this diagnosis. Well, now what do we do?
The best thing, if we have Bipolar Disorder, is honestly to see a psychiatrist or your GP or PCP, whoever your primary care doctor is
or a psychiatrist and get on medication. And I know many of you are like: "Kati, I don't want to be on medication. I want to do this holistically".
But in my experience, bipolar people can be very high-functioning. It doesn't affect us.
People have this "stigma" about it. And that's what I'm here to do, right? We're breaking through the stigma of mental health issues.
Bipolar Disorder; a lot of people are great artists. They run companies. They're very successful.
We function at a really high level when we have Bipolar Disorder as long as we keep it under control.
Yeah, we feel great! Ooh! We're manic! Yay!
No! Because it really is hard for the people around us and it can actually lead us to make really poor decisions.
One of the symptoms of Mania is lacking clear decision-making skills. People will go out and spend thousands of dollars or we may quit our jobs because we believe we're so much better.
And yeah, we might be, but we want to be able to make clear decisions. The best thing to do to stop us from either being so depressed we can't get out of bed and go to work or not going...
You know? We want to keep us in this normal range and the best way to do that is to get on medication.
That would be my first recommendation. Please see your doctor. Please get a proper diagnosis.
Make sure they clearly figured out which you have, what you're struggling with and that they will give you the medication that you need to get back to a normal baseline for you.
The second thing is to find a therapist like me, someone who you can talk to and you can work through this as you try to figure out: "When do I feel like I'm kind of getting manic?"
"Or when do I feel like I'm sinking into depression?" Right? We kind of need to have an awareness, so that we know to go to our doctor
and say: "Hey, I'm having these breakthrough symptoms. I'm feeling a little bit more manic than I was or I'm feeling a little more depressed".
We need to have that awareness. Right?
And I know it's really hard to know all that and keep all this going, but it can really help to have someone on your side that you can talk to.
You can figure it out and they can work with you, so that you, you know, have Bipolar Disorder, but it doesn't define who you are. You're doing a bunch of other things. Right?
And we're living our life. And I hope that this really helps explain Bipolar Disorder and differentiates it from the others because I know it can be really confusing.
And leave your feedback below. If any of you suffer from Bipolar Disorder or know someone who does, let us know what's helped.
I mean, if you have something, a tool that's really helped you or a way that you noticed when you're going into a different episode
let us know. Right? We learn from one another. That's what makes our community so great.
And stay tuned. I'll be doing more videos like this. I know that a lot of you like these kind of DSM-driven, you know, differential diagnosis kind of videos.
I'll keep putting them out, so don't forget to subscribe and give it a "thumbs up" if you like it.
We'll keep working together towards a Healthy Mind and a Healthy Body.
Oh, my foot's asleep! Oh. Ah.
(Sean: Okay.) Okay.
(Sean: That was really good.)
It's the best way to describe it, so... Otherwise it gets confusing.
It's just so much stuff, you know?
It's like: "Aaaagh". Okay.
Subtitles by the Amara.org community